Rothschild answers Star on education issue

by David Safier

The Star took both mayoral candidates to task in a Sunday editorial, saying they don't understand the nature of the job they're applying for.

The editorial went after Jonathan Rothschild for daring to say he wanted to be involved in the educational climate in Tucson.

As for Rothschild's education agenda, city government has no responsibility for schools. We have a federal Department of Education, a state Department of Education and a county school superintendent's office, not to mention elected boards in each school district.

The education system in this country is troubled, but the mayor of Tucson has no power to fix it. And wouldn't a Mayor Rothschild have more than enough city problems to keep himself busy? Parkwise or the 911 emergency system, perhaps?

The mayor shouldn't involve himself in the education of the city's children? At all? Doesn't it make sense to work on some kind of coordination of city government and educational governance, to make sure everyone is doing whatever they can to improve our educational system?

This is from Rothschild's response:

As you know, Tucson’s future as an economically viable metro area is rooted in a strong education system. While it is not the Mayor’s job to manage our educational institutions, it would be irresponsible for any Mayor to ignore them.

When I am Mayor, I will work hard to support and improve our educational institutions. In my 180-Day Work Plan, I wrote that, “I intend to meet regularly with Superintendents of all Tucson school districts as well as representatives from local colleges and universities, including the Chancellor of Pima Community College and the President of the University of Arizona, to see how the city can help foster excellence in education – both K-12 and beyond.”

I don’t expect that a Mayor can do much good all by himself. But a collaborative approach can work. In addition to using the bully pulpit of the Mayor’s office to support education, I intend to organize business leaders to make Tucson’s case to the state legislature in support of our schools, colleges and universities. They say you can wring your hands or fix the tractor, and there’s plenty of fixing to do.

Makes sense to me.